Barwick Green
"Barwick Green" is the theme music to the long-running BBC Radio 4 soap opera The Archers. It is a "maypole dance" from the suite My Native Heath, written in 1924 by the Yorkshire composer Arthur Wood, and named after Barwick-in-Elmet in Yorkshire's West Riding.[1]
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The recording used between 1950 and the 1990s was played by Sidney Torch and his orchestra.[citation needed] Sidney Torch recorded a commercial release of "Barwick Green" in the 1950s, but it was not used on The Archers itself.[citation needed]
The familiar opening 7 notes are echoed in the pizzicato in Benjamin Britten's Simple Symphony, written in 1934.
The Sunday omnibus broadcast of The Archers starts with a more rustic, accordion-arranged rendition by The Yetties.[2][3] Whilst the theme for BBC Radio 4 Extra's The Archers spinoff, Ambridge Extra, is a version arranged by Bellowhead.[4]
